


Kou's Crisis

by benicemurphy



Category: Free!
Genre: Background Relationships, F/F, Mild Sexual Content, Self-Discovery, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 04:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16319447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy/pseuds/benicemurphy
Summary: Kou was elated to finally have a friend like Isuzu. After meeting at Nationals, the two became fast friends. Little did Kou know, their new friendship would also bring along with it a personal crisis that she never expected.





	Kou's Crisis

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tweet by @daikimine

It seemed like fate when they met at Nationals. Another girl as infatuated with muscles as Kou herself? What a dream! Ayumu couldn’t care less, and even Hana-chan never fully understood Kou’s love of swimmers and their incredible bodies. Sure, she was happy to support the team, but that’s all it was for her — support for the team. Kou never understood it. How could she not see the allure of strong biceps, sculpted triceps, perfectly taut abdominals, water running down the ridges of an unfairly statue-esque physique— she shook the thoughts out of her head. Now was not the time to get worked up.

She sighed, dreaming anyway of back muscles that shift beneath her fingers, firm pectorals that flex with every movement of a swimmer’s perfect body.

Finally, she had someone to commiserate with, she thought as she sent Isuzu yet another picture from Iwatobi’s first training camp. Ah, those were the days, before all the hot guys she knew were dating each other and she could feel less guilty about fantasizing about them all. This particular picture was her favorite. It showed Makoto turned away from the camera, his spectacular back muscles on display as he stretched his arms over his head. Haruka was also in the picture, sitting on the ground beside Makoto braced on his hands behind him, showing off his perfectly flexed triceps. She sighed again. How she missed ogling those muscles.

Isuzu texted back almost immediately with a heart-eyes emoji and two green and blue hearts. That was another thing that Kou loved talking about with Isuzu — since all of the boys she knew were apparently gay, she discovered that she quite liked thinking about them together. Two boys together meant all muscle, all hard, toned bodies, touching and sliding against each other, sharp jawlines opening up to accept the other while big hands roamed across broad shoulders and down to sweep the firm ridges of the iliac furrow— _Stop it, Kou!_ Now was _seriously_ not the time to get _that_ worked up. But yes, she loved talking about it with Isuzu, who didn’t know the boys very well but still very much appreciated their aesthetic appeal, both separately and as couples.

Once upon a time, Kou had hoped she and Sousuke might eventually end up together. After all, aside from her brother, Sousuke had the best muscles of them all, in her totally unbiased opinion. But alas, as fate would have it, Sousuke ended up falling in love with her beloved nii-chan, and she was left with no one but the Mikoshiba brothers to fawn over. And let’s face it, Seijuuro was hot (so, _so_ hot), but he was away at university, and he was always a little intimidating with his affection, anyway. And the other one… Momotarou, was it? Well, she was looking for a lover, not a child she would need to babysit, glorious glutes be damned.

She was sitting in the clubhouse cleaning up after practice. It had been a good day. The swimming season was over, but there was a little time left before summer break, and the boys were making the most of it. Kou missed her old team, but she loved her new team, too. Still, the best part of the summer had definitely been meeting Isuzu. She was just the coolest.

Just as Kou was packing the remainder of her things and heading out, she got a snap from Isuzu. She opened the Snapchat app and tapped to bring up the picture. It was a selfie of Isuzu grinning and holding up a stuffed octopus, one tentacle waving in greeting, with the caption, _“Takocchi says hi!”_ Kou smiled. Over the last few weeks, she became fairly familiar with Isuzu’s small army of stuffed animals. Takocchi was her favorite, so he featured in a lot of Isuzu’s snaps.

Kou snapped back immediately with her own grin and a peace sign. _“Hi Takocchi! Can’t wait to meet you!”_

On the train home, she received another snap of Isuzu lying in bed with her headphones on, her hair splayed out around her head while she used a water bottle as a microphone. The caption had the lyrics from a popular song on the radio. She snapped back a goofy selfie with no caption.

After that, Kou switched the conversation back to text to talk about their upcoming summer break. For nearly two months, Isuzu would be back in Tottori with her parents, which meant two months of girl talk, sleepovers, and poring over the stacks of muscle magazines that Kou had been collecting since she turned thirteen. Kou could not _wait_. All she had to do was get through the rest of the school week, and then she would be on break and could spend all of her free time with her new best friend while her boys spent their free time with each other.

________________

Unfortunately, Rin wouldn't be home for summer break. He still had training and a couple of minor competitions, which obviously he would never give up to do something as trivial as _coming home and spending time with his family_ , which meant Kou and her mother had the house to themselves. It also meant that when Isuzu stayed over, she didn't have to worry about propriety the way that Kou did when they stayed at Isuzu's parents' house with all of the Mikoshiba men.

In hindsight, that was probably how Kou's personal crisis first started.

Isuzu came over for the first time just a few days after she got to town. The night had all the makings of a full-blown stereotypical sleepover. Hana-chan and Ayumu also came, because the first sleepover of summer break should be a blowout. Activities included baking, chick flicks, gossip, dirty magazines, pillow fights, blanket forts, and much cooing over Steve the cat. And, of course, there were pajamas. With no men in the house, no one was worried about their appearance. They wore no makeup, their hair up in messy buns, and either ratty (read: comfy) old pajama pants and t-shirts or (equally as comfy but much less modest) silk shorts and tank tops.

Kou and Ayumu fell squarely into the ratty but comfy category, while Hana-chan and Isuzu preferred cuter, silkier pajamas. Kou thought nothing of it at first; after all, she had seen Hana-chan in her pajamas more times than she could count. But for some reason, all throughout the night, Kou kept noticing how amazing Isuzu looked in her pajamas. They were nothing special, really — just a normal set of white silk pajamas, matching shorts and tank top. Yet Kou kept catching herself entranced with the way the flimsy shorts rested daintily against Isuzu's strong thighs, or how the lace across the top of her tank teased her shoulder blades. Each time she grew more confused. They were just pajamas, right? It's not like she felt that way looking at Hana-chan.

Maybe after everyone left, she should just go out and buy some for herself.

________________

So she did.

Observing herself in the mirror in her new silk pajama set the next night did nothing to quell her confusion. She looked at her own thighs, thin and pretty but not nearly as attractive in shorts as Isuzu's. She looked at her arms, her calves, any body part that she could see, but found nothing remarkable about the way the fabric draped across her figure.

Oh well. At least they were comfortable.

________________

The next phase of her personal crisis hit when Kou was lounging in bed and got a snap from Isuzu while she was out shopping with her family. It was harmless enough, really; a typical friend-to-friend type of snap. Girls sent those kinds of things to each other all the time. Hell, she sent Hana-chan and Isuzu almost the exact same snap at least two or three times when she was out shopping only a few weeks before.

“ _What do you think? Love it or leave it?_ ” the caption read.

No, the problem was not the picture. The problem was the Kou could not tear her eyes _away_ from the picture. 

Because Isuzu's abs looked _incredible_ in that bikini.

Unsure what to do, and in a bold moment of what she would later see as absolute stupidity, she took a screenshot of the snap before it disappeared. Then she opened the chat window and typed a very enthusiastic, “ _Love it!!!_ ” before shoving her phone into her nightstand and going downstairs for a glass of water — an ice cold glass of water. 

What. The. _Hell_. 

That was not how normal girls reacted to other girls in bikinis. 

It was like the stupid pajama mystery all over again, only this time, it wasn't really a mystery. Kou knew exactly what she was looking at. She saw the faint definition of six-pack abs in the shitty lighting of the dressing room, and upon further inspection (because of course the second she got back to her room she couldn't resist opening up her photo gallery and taking another curious look), she saw the way the her thighs flexed as she posed in the mirror, and all at once it made sense why Isuzu looked so much better in her pajamas than Kou or Hana-chan did.

That girl had _muscles_. 

Well, that was alright. Kou already knew she liked muscles. That was nothing new. Even if they were attached to a girl this time, she was still just admiring the muscles. It's not like she was really into Isuzu herself. That would be crazy! Because Kou didn't like girls. She _didn't_. Right? Of course not. She'd never liked another girl before. It was only the muscles. 

...Right?

________________

To test her new theory, Kou decided to go out and do some research. Luckily for her, this type of research was easy to do in the summer time. All she had to do was take a trip to the beach and check out the scantily-clad bodies there. Easy!

In an attempt to not look so sketchy, she thought it best to invite some friends along. She texted the swim club boys, current and past members, as well as Hana-chan and Ayumu. She knew that Isuzu would be busy with her family that day, so she didn’t have to feel bad for not inviting her. After all, this was a research mission, and she did not need distractions — well, aside from the six gorgeous hunks of man meat that were tagging along already.

Things were going great. Nagisa and Romio were running around like children, as expected, occasionally disturbing someone’s sandcastle or interrupting a game of beach volleyball as Rei desperately chased after them in a vain attempt to get them to show some decency. Haruka and Shizuru were bonding over their love of ugly-cute animals and exchanging family seafood recipes while Makoto gazed at Haruka with more love in his eyes than a mother gazing at her newborn baby. Hana-chan spent the majority of the day sun-bathing and napping, and Ayumu perched herself under an umbrella with a book.

Makoto generally kept close by, as he didn’t really love the ocean like Haruka did, but he was distracted enough building sandcastles between loving stares that he didn’t seem to notice Kou’s wandering eyes and vigorous note-taking.

For the majority of the day, she found things she basically already knew. She preferred muscles that were well-defined with a decent amount of bulk, but too much bulk looked fake and clunky. There was a massive difference between muscles gained as a result of daily training and the love of a person’s craft and muscles gained through gratuitous weight-lifting aided by artificial supplements. That wasn’t to say that lifting weights and adding a bit of protein powder to balance an already healthy meal was wrong — not at all! — but Kou preferred muscles that were built with purpose and passion, for strength, not for purely aesthetic appeal or the need to become as large as humanly possible.

The interesting things she learned about herself came when she started observing more women. Most notably, she found she wasn’t that interested in anyone. Hana-chan was beautiful, of course, but her body didn’t fascinate Kou the way Isuzu’s did. Ayumu was also adorable but did nothing for Kou in the way of physical attraction. A group of four girls were playing beach volleyball not far from where they were seated, and Kou spent much of her time gauging her own reaction to them, as well. While most of the girls didn’t mean much to Kou, there was one tall girl with pinkish-brown hair to whom Kou found her eyes repeatedly drawn.

She wasn’t sure what it was about her; she had a beautiful body, of course, and a beautiful face from what Kou could tell, but she had no idea why the girl had captured her attention. In her notebook, Kou wrote down all of her observations.

_Height: ~172cm_  
_Weight: est: 55kg?_  
_Charm point: glutes (calves, quads, and hamstrings also well-defined)_  
_Hair: pink-brown, worn in pigtails_  
_Eyes: brown_

She deduced that the girl was objectively attractive, but was Kou actually attracted _to her_? That required extra research, so she began to compare the girl’s physical attractiveness to boys’. First, she looked at Makoto. With his back to her, she could see the beautiful trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles that flexed and shifted as he worked on his sandcastle, and she sighed in quiet appreciation. Then, she looked out into the ocean at Haruka and Shizuru. Both were much leaner and lankier than Makoto, but their muscles were no less beautiful; lean muscle absolutely had its place in Kou’s heart. Finally, she looked back to the girl with the pigtails. Her muscles were also very lean and defined, but the shape of her body was different. Rather than broad shoulders tapering down to a trim waist, her figure was more of an hour glass, flaring back out at the hips, which allowed for more shapely gluteus, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus muscles. Kou found it rather pleasant.

She opened the photo gallery on her phone again and took another look at the picture Isuzu sent. Her body shape was a little different as well. Years of swimming allowed for a more even spread of muscle tone, and her shape was naturally more rectangular than hour-glass; even so, the softer curves around hard muscle were absolutely gorgeous. Yes, Isuzu was physically attractive, and Kou was attracted to her.

It was only then that Kou started to feel the beginning twinges of guilt. It was easy enough to think about all of this from a clinical standpoint, just observing muscle tone and appreciating an athlete’s hard work, but objectifying her friend’s body in terms of physical attraction made her feel immense shame. What if someone had been looking at _her_ that way, making detailed judgements about her own body?

She deleted the picture and put her phone away, making a mental note to apologize to Isuzu the next time she saw her.

She attempted to spend the rest of her beach day enjoying the sun and her friends’ company, but in the back of her mind, she couldn’t completely quash the curiosity that had sprung up over all of these new discoveries.

________________

The nail in the coffin came when Isuzu joined the Iwatobi team for one of their summer practices. Even though competitions were over, taking a month and a half off of training while the pool was still open was a completely ridiculous notion, and Kou would not be able to live with herself as team manager if she allowed her boys to slack off and destroy all of their hard work. Isuzu was planning on doing mostly land training or paying for a summer membership to a local swim club while she was home, but Kou insisted that they had a perfectly free pool and that she should just join them whenever she needed to train in the water.

Big. Mistake.

If Kou thought Isuzu looked good in a poorly-lit picture sent from a mall changing room, she had no idea what she was in for when Isuzu was dripping wet and shimmering in the bright light of the summer sun.

_Stupid, Kou! Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

Oh yes, she was _so_ attracted to her.

Even in her athletic swimsuit, which covered the abs that had sent her into her sexual orientation crisis in the first place, she looked stunning. The high cut of the suit showed off her thighs and lengthened her legs, putting her lithe leg muscles on full display. Her stroke was powerful and graceful and showed the strength and beauty of her upper body. She swam without a swim cap, and each time she finished a workout and shook out her hair, the water droplets sparkled around her face and neck, making her skin glisten. Kou could not stop staring.

Isuzu was in the middle of a 1000-meter endurance exercise when Nagisa came up to an unsuspecting Kou and whispered, “She has great muscles, eh, Gou-chan?” Kou nearly jumped out of her skin, more out of fear of being caught staring than actual surprise at Nagisa’s voice in her ears, which she had long ago gotten used to.

Still, she tried to remain calm and embrace the subject as she usually would rather than freak out and deny anything. Denying things always made people sound a thousand percent guiltier.

“Yes, she definitely has a swimmer’s muscles. It’s interesting to observe a woman’s definition after spending so much time memorizing the male anatomy.”

“Ahhh Gou-chan is memorizing Isuzu-chan’s anatomy, _eh?_ ” Nagisa exclaimed. Kou’s face flamed red.

“That is not what I meant, and you know it! I’m just appreciating my fellow female. You know, solidarity and all that.”

“You never appreciate Ayumu-chan’s body!”

“That’s totally different! She— I— she doesn’t swim!”

“Suuure Gou-chan, but you know you were giving her the same look that Mako-chan gives Haru-chan when he swims, right?”

“I AM NOT!” She cried, feeling absolutely done with the conversation. Before she stalked off, she turned on her heel and called back, “And by the way, you’re one to talk! You practically drool when Rei-kun is swimming!”

As she slammed the door to the club room, she could just hear Nagisa’s declaration of “I never said I didn’t!”

Well, that was that. She had totally been caught checking out another girl, and she had no good excuse for it. And now everyone was probably going to find out, because it’s not like their conversation had exactly been quiet near the end.

She sat and wallowed in anger and self-pity in the club room until Isuzu came in to join her.

_Just perfect._

“Are you okay, Gou-san?” she asked, concern lacing her features.

Rather than responding, Kou quietly asked, “Did you hear our conversation?”

Isuzu was quiet for a moment. “Do you want to come over today? My brothers won’t be home, and my parents have their weekly date night. Maybe we can talk.” Kou nodded. “Great. Do you want to stay the night? Should we stop and get clothes for you?”

Kou hesitated. Should she stay the night? What if things got weird? After all, Isuzu hadn’t actually answered the question of whether or not she had heard the conversation. Sensing her hesitation, Isuzu offered a smile and a compromise. “Why don’t you just come over? If you decide to stay the night, I’m sure I have something you can wear to sleep. Now come on, let’s go back out and finish practice.” Kou smiled back and nodded again.

Isuzu pulled her into a hug and then led the way out of the club room and back out to the pool to finish practice. If anyone noticed how Kou ran Nagisa ragged for the rest of the day, they didn’t say anything.

________________

Luckily for Kou, torturing Nagisa seemed to have worked wonders for raising her spirits, and by the time the girls arrived at Isuzu’s house, all of the tension from earlier had dissipated. After a couple of hours, she thought staying the night sounded like a good idea after all, and she called her mother to let her know where she was and that she wouldn’t be home.

As promised, after a quick dinner and a few episodes of the newest sports anime, it was time to talk.

Kou adamantly refused to bring up the topic herself, but she knew it was likely to come up at some point, anyway. That was why she was there, after all, as much as she wanted to convince herself that it was just a normal night of watching cute boys playing sports with a friend. When Isuzu started shifting in her seat and shooting her looks, she knew it was coming soon. Sure enough, when the last episode ended, Isuzu picked up the remote and turned off the TV, then turned to square herself with Kou.

“So…” she started. Kou squared herself as well and nodded for Isuzu to continue. “You and Nagisa were getting kind of heated earlier.” She nodded again. “What did he say that upset you so much?”

Kou didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t just admit that she had recently discovered she was sexually attracted to the girl sitting right across from her. _Wait, sexually attracted?_ That was a very sudden and very upsetting realization. Physical attraction she could handle — she fairly quickly accepted that under the right circumstances, she enjoyed looking at other women — but sexual attraction? That was a whole new minefield. Sexual attraction implied a desire to act on physical attraction. But there was really no denying it now that it had come to her attention, now that she was sitting right across from Isuzu, looking at her, feeling the urge to reach out and touch her. She couldn’t very well say any of that, could she? No. Absolutely not.

Instead, she asked, “How much did you hear?”

Isuzu looked torn. Kou could pretty easily gather that Isuzu had heard most, if not all of the conversation, but wasn’t sure how much she should give away. The longer Isuzu hesitated to answer the question, the more Kou squirmed in her discomfort. Instead of waiting any longer, she took a deep breath, her decision made, and ripped off the band-aid.

“Nagisa caught me looking at you, and I was embarrassed.”

Isuzu’s eyes widened a little in surprise, as if she wasn’t sure Kou was actually going to own up to it, but she didn’t look upset.

“Why were you looking at me?”

Kou studied her face to see how truthfully she should answer. What she found was somewhat surprising. Isuzu wasn’t disturbed, disgusted, or angry. In fact, she mostly just looked… curious? Maybe even nervous?

 _Oh well,_ Kou thought, _at least she lives in Tokyo. If things get weird after this, it’ll suck, but… she deserves to know the truth._

“I’m…” she took a few steadying breaths, “I’m attracted to you.”

She struggled to maintain eye contact. She did not want to duck her head and hide. She was humiliated to admit such a thing so boldly, but she didn’t deserve to hide. She deserved to bare herself to Isuzu, to let Isuzu scrutinize her the way she had been doing for weeks.

Instead of shying away, as Kou expected, Isuzu inched closer.

“Are you sure about that, Gou-chan?” _Gou-chan?_ Kou nodded. Isuzu moved closer. “What kind of attraction, Gou-chan?” _There it is again!_ Closer. “This kind of attraction?” She reached out a hand and gingerly laid it on Kou’s knee. Kou swallowed audibly and nodded again.

“Yes,” she whispered, “that kind of attraction.” Her heart pounded in her chest. She could feel the blood moving in her veins. She could feel her lungs contracting and expanding with each breath.

Isuzu slid her hand up Kou’s thigh at a torturously slow pace. Kou could feel her breathing becoming ragged with anticipation.

“Is this okay?” Isuzu asked once her hand was settled high on Kou’s thigh. Kou nodded again eagerly. She was totally flabbergasted. Not once, in all of her contemplation, did she think confessing her attraction would turn out like this. She had no idea that Isuzu was interested in women at all, much less herself.

“Isuzu-s—“ she cleared her throat, feeling heat rise in her cheeks as she chose to switch to the more intimate nickname, “Isuzu-chan, you… are you attracted to me?”

Isuzu nodded yes, her hand still resting on Kou’s thigh as her own face heated up at the affirmation. “I’ve been attracted to you since the beginning, Gou-chan. You’re just as cute as my brothers always said.” She paused and brought up her unoccupied hand to brush the hair out of Kou’s face. “Even cuter, actually.”

“I don’t look like you, though,” Kou admitted in shame. “I don’t have muscles like yours. You’re so beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful too, Gou-chan. You’re soft and smooth and feminine. You’re _so_ beautiful.”

Kou exhaled slowly, willing her heartbeat to calm. Isuzu’s hand was _still_ on her thigh, and her thumb had begun rubbing slow circles where it lay. Kou was _extremely_ aware of the motion, and she began to reciprocate Isuzu’s forwardness as she moved her own body closer and laid a hand on Isuzu’s waist. Isuzu correctly interpreted the gesture and rose to her knees as Kou did the same. Kou shivered when she felt Isuzu’s hand move up from her thigh and over her hip to settle at the small of her back. At the slight pressure, she inched forward just a fraction.

They were _so close_. She could move her hand to mirror Isuzu’s on her back and pull her flush against herself. She could bring up her other arm, currently hanging unsurely by her side, and run it up through the soft hair on the back of Isuzu’s head. She could lean forward _just a smidge_ to brush her nose against Isuzu’s so that they’d be breathing the same air.

She could, so she did.

It was a new feeling, having another woman’s breasts gently pressed against her own, but it was a _good_ kind of new. It heated her body and twisted her gut pleasantly. She’d been aroused before, of course, but the new sensations of another person’s body, another _woman’s_ body against her made her feel dirty and hot and excited, _really_ excited, and before she knew it she had parted her legs so that she could bring Isuzu even closer, and Isuzu was gasping into her mouth, and she was sealing her lips against her friend’s in her empty house while her body pulsed with desire, and she no longer cared that she had never noticed other women before, because all she needed was Isuzu who was so beautiful and muscular and soft and _hot_ , so hot it was making Kou sweat, and her lips felt so smooth because she knew Isuzu used lip balm to keep them from chapping, and the words just slipped out of her mouth because she couldn’t hold herself back anymore and she whispered, “Isuzu-chan, you feel so good,” and then Isuzu was kissing back as if she’d been waiting for this since the moment they met, and who knows, maybe she had.

Without a second thought, because there was no more time for thinking, she gently lowered Isuzu onto her back so that she was straddling her. Their kiss had evolved from slow and sensual to open-mouthed and needy, and Kou’s fingers itched to explore. She slid the hand that was supporting Isuzu’s back forward so that she was gripping her waist, and Isuzu tightened beneath her, as if her body was coiling under her touch. She felt Isuzu’s hands move so that they were both settled on the backs of her thighs, and Isuzu gave a little squeeze in appreciation, which made Kou whimper a tiny moan against the other’s lips. She could feel herself getting wet between her legs, and she vaguely worried that she had not brought a change of clothes, but it was such a ridiculous worry that she shoved the thought away and pressed further onto Isuzu’s body so that Isuzu was supporting Kou’s body weight beneath her. In a need for more, Kou found an opening in their kiss and slipped her tongue into the other girl’s mouth, teasing her and pulling soft gasps and sighs from her friend as she varied their kisses.

“Gou-chan,” Isuzu finally said as they broke off to catch their breaths, “you’re so beautiful. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” Kou panted above her, not willing to draw back too far, as she wasn’t ready for it to end yet. They stared into each other’s eyes, both not quite believing what was happening, until Isuzu wrapped her hand around Kou’s, the hand that had settled on Isuzu’s waist some time ago, and slowly maneuvered it so that it rested beneath her shirt in silent permission for Kou to touch more of her.

Kou’s heart seemed to explode in her chest as she inched her hand up the smooth, toned abdomen beneath her. Before she got too close, she swallowed a few times to work up her nerve and asked, “Are you sure?” Isuzu nodded her consent, and Kou slip her hand up until she could feel a soft mound beneath her hand and a perky nipple against her palm. She gave a gentle, experimental squeeze, enough to arouse but not enough to hurt, and felt Isuzu tremble beneath her. She leaned down again and hesitated before meeting her friend’s lips, just long enough to make Isuzu close the gap herself, and they engaged in another slow, languid kiss as Kou continued to caress the other’s breast.

After the initial rush of adrenaline and sexual awakening faded to something sweeter, Kou allowed herself to get lost in her thoughts. What did all of this mean? While they kissed, she took inventory of the facts: Isuzu was her friend. She enjoyed spending time with her. She was funny, cute, and interesting. She was attracted to her, obviously, and she _really_ liked kissing her. In the future, she wanted to continue kissing her and spending time with her, and maybe let things go farther.

Her conclusion was pretty simple.

She pulled back again, this time removing her hands and body weight from Isuzu, and sat back so that she was seated on Isuzu’s thighs. Isuzu sat up as well, supporting herself by propping up on her hands behind her.

“What is, Gou-chan?” she asked, blinking her beautiful golden eyes. She looked so cute with her bright orange Mikoshiba hair all disheveled. Kou smiled. She knew this was what she wanted.

“Isuzu-chan,” she started, and then lifted one of Isuzu’s hands between both of her own, causing Isuzu to sit up straight. “I really liked you.”

Isuzu smiled back. “I really like you, too.”

“I know you have to go back to Tokyo at the end of the summer, but I want to give this a try.”

“This?”

“Us,” Kou clarified. “I like you, and I want to be with you. Romantically.” She blushed a little then and looked away, finally letting her bashfulness show.

Isuzu blushed a matching shade but smiled even brighter than before. “I’d really like that,” she replied, and then she took Kou into her arms and kissed her, firmly and surely, and Kou felt the happiness inside her well up like a balloon until it popped, and she started giggling against her new girlfriend’s lips.

The rest of the evening was spent in blissful seclusion, allowing them to get acquainted with their newfound closeness. They changed into pajamas (Kou was very pleased to see that Isuzu was wearing her silk pajamas again, even though she was borrowing sweatpants and a tank top to sleep in herself), watched more of their sports anime and discussed their favorite pairings, held hands, cuddled, and kissed. When it was time for bed, instead of sleeping head-to-foot like they normally would, they slept side-by-side and held each other through the night.

________________

Naturally, the next time Isuzu joined the Iwatobi team for training, Nagisa sniffed out their new relationship like some kind of love bloodhound and declared it loudly to the universe. Although Kou was secretly pleased to have their secret out, and she knew Isuzu was, too, that didn’t stop her from assigning Nagisa roughly twice as many laps as everyone else as punishment. 


End file.
